Community frustrated after vacant home goes up in flames in Winnipeg’s West End:’ This has to stop’
Posted August 13, 2026 4:54 pm.
Last Updated August 13, 2026 5:04 pm.
The smell of smoke was still in the air on Sherbrook Street Thursday after a vacant home caught fire just before 6 a.m.
The flames damaged the roof of the home, as well as a neigbourhing home.
Darrell Warren, the president of the William Whyte Neighbourhood Association, has long been advocating for enforcement of vacant properties. He claims he hasn’t seen action from the city.
“I’m just frustrated,” Warren said.
The Sherbrook Street blaze took firefighters three hours to get under control, which Warren says isn’t uncommon in the neighbourhood.
CityNews reached out to the Winnipeg Fire and Paramedic Service and the City of Winnipeg but did not immediately hear back.
“This has to stop,” Warren said. “I have been saying this for years.”
In a press release, WFPS said a nearby home was evacuated as a precaution, and a Winnipeg Transit bus was used as a temporary shelter for displaced residents.
No one was hurt and the fire is under investigation.
“They are sitting in their house, and their house can go up in smoke and what is it going to take? One death is too many,” said Warren.
Dennis Kozakevich, who has lived in the West End for the past few years, says vacant home fires are a reoccurring issue that he finds troubling.
“This is the same thing that’s been occurring since I’ve been in the neighbourhood for past seven years,” Kozakevich said.
Kozakevich claims drug use and criminal activity in his neighbourhood are also on the rise. Despite that, he says he won’t be moving out of the city’s core.
“The fires disturb me, but with the fires, also the deaths that occur with all that happens in our neighbourhood.”
